"The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places."
~ Roald Dahl
***
"Jason?" Mac repeats but I don't look at him. I keep my eyes glued to the radio dials, as if I can move them with my mind. Kind of like the Force but a little less cool and more sad zoning out but not really. If that makes any sense at all.
"Colby," Mac says and he gently rubs his callused hand on my knee. "Look, if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. But -"
"It was in sophomore year," I choke out, somehow managing not to start crying. God, I'm such a baby. "I don't know why I'm still so sad about it, it shouldn't matter at this point." I wipe my nose with my sleeve and blink back forming tears.
Mac looks over at me with concerned ice-blue eyes and says, "Jason. As in, Jason Brinkley?" His fist tightens at his leg but his face remains collected. Without answering, I just nod. He purses his lips and shifts his gaze to where his hand rests on my knee.
"I'm sorry," he says in a low voice. "I'm so sorry he hurt you Cole." His words sound so real. As if he knows me as much as he says he does, which he just might. God, am I really that readable?
"It's fine," I assure Mac and I swallow back tears. "It was a long time ago." I shift in my seat to pull my knees up to my chest and I reach for the radio, but his hand catches my wrist and I feel my fingers tingle. God, won't you listen to me? I sound like a fricking saccharine refrigerator.
"No it's not," Mac tells me, seriously for once and I feel myself tense. "You know it's not. And I'm not saying you have to tell me everything, but at least tell me the gist."
I ponder this for a second. My first thought is to tell him exactly what the hell is wrong with me and why, but the rational part of my mind screams at me not to and tells me to stop being an idiot and think for a goddamn minute. He hasn't given me any reason to trust him. And even so, the last time I trusted somebody with something like this was before I had a reason to hide it. No. If I tell him about what happened, there's a chance that he'll leave me.
I mentally slap myself. God, Cole! Just listen to yourself! You've known him for three days. Three goddamned days, how in the hell can you get that close to a person in a time span of seventy two hours? So what if he leaves? He was going to leave anyway and you know it. Stop this, Colby. You're being fucking ridiculous.
I groan aloud and this makes Mac smile at me, obviously amused even though I don't see the humor in my groaning. Okay, well that wasn't supposed to sound the way it seemed, stop being perverted.
"You okay?" Mac chuckles and in a fit, I open the pizza box in between us with a lot of attitude and hastily take out a slice, stuffing it into my face as one with a migraine the size of Texas would take an Advil. Which means to say, I eat it as if I haven't eaten in weeks, even though the last slice of pizza I had was barely five minutes ago.
"Fine," I mumble around the gooey cheese and tomato paste as I check the time. I have about a half an hour until I have to be home. Mac rolls his eyes playfully at me and says,
"So, Cole," He slips his key into the ignition and the heater kicks on, warming me up a bit. He leans back into his seat and continues, "Baseball season's here and we have a game on Tuesday -"
